Checksum Arcanius

The 5mg oxycodone tablets I have are labelled “for breakthrough pain” which I have taken to mean pain that breaks through the background level of 10mg extended release oxycodone pills I have. I have stopped taking the 10mg tablets, and I have found that in my current state, I have to take about one 5mg tablet each night to make it through — or at least to be able to sleep.

On the flip side, I started physical therapy yesterday — I’m going again today, and then on Tuesday, after which I will be seeing Dr. Wahl for a post-surgical evaluation. One of the exercises I was supposed to do for physical therapy was to lift the injured leg, keeping it straight. Well, lifting the leg turned out to be quite an issue since, just as I was told would happen (though I didn’t believe it at the time), my right quad “forgot” how to operate. Or perhaps more precisely, I forgot how to operate my right quad. I could try with all I was worth, but I could not cause it to lift my leg. It was a frustrating, disenchanting, almost out-of-body feeling, not being able to control a leg that was clearly mine. Then I was trying again today, and suddenly, I regained control of the leg and it lifted. I don’t know why the sudden change, but it was not fleeting — the ability to lift the leg stayed with me. It was exhilarating to have the control back — I wanted to dance, but didn’t, because that probably would have been bad.

After checking in at the Surgery Pavillion (not actually a party place, but still pretty nice), I got to sit around and converse with my mom and with three or four nurses who occasionally visited. I didn’t actually began the trip to the Operating Room until around 2:30 Friday afternoon — the earlier surgeries had gone a bit longer than expected. I never made it to the OR, at least not as I remember it. The “cocktail” the nurse anaesthetist gave me that was supposed to prepare me for “really going under” itself did the trick. I felt great for about a minute, and then I was gone.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a recovery room around 4:30 and feeling quite good — probably the closest approximation to drunk I have ever experienced. I called out to the guy at the other side of the hall, joked and talked loudly with the nurses and surgeon, and generally had a great time as I came down from the drug-induced high. It wasn’t long until I started feeling pain, but as distant as it seems now, I’m pretty sure they gave me another pain med booster shot into my IV about that time. During the two-hour surgery, I sucked down 3 IV bags and the next thing I noticed (but only once it was suggest by a nurse) was that I needed to relieve myself in a pretty bad way. With lots of help, I made my way off of the bed and across the hall to the bathroom, then back onto the bed. I don’t remember too well what happened in the rest of my time in the recovery room — perhaps I fell asleep again?

At any rate, around 6:30 or 7:00, we finally left the hospital. A nurse took me down to the parking garage in a wheel chair and then he helped me into the car, a Subaru Legacy that barely fit me with my leg-that-would-not-bend (due to a brace, not the surgery itself). My mom, who had spent the whole day at the surgery pavilion with me, then took me to my parent’s place here in Bellevue. By the time I got home and situated on the family-couch-turned-bed, I was in a lot of pain again, so I took the first of my oxycodone 10mg extended release tablets. Well, this stuff really is pretty powerful, and although I wasn’t exactly comfortable afterwards, the pain was dull enough to get along.

The first night was uncomfortable; the couch did not a good bed make — it was not supportive enough and its backwards tilt gave me some back pain the next day. I had to get up twice on my own to go to the bathroom, and one of those trips was combined with tuning off my mother’s cell phone, which was complaining about a low battery every five minutes with a loud beep, and turning off the dishwasher, which was complaining about nobody emptying it every ten minutes with a series of loud beeps. Suffice it to say, I didn’t stay on the couch the next two nights.

Saturday was actually my birthday (the surgery was a day-early present), but my mom arranged a surprise “rolling party” for me. Throughout the day, various friends showed up bringing good cheer and cards. It was really quite a bit of fun and did a good job to keep my mind off of the pain. That night we wached Transformers before calling it a night. I slept in my brother’s old room; it was much more comfortable, especially after I discovered that not raising my leg on a pillow actually reduced pain for me. I only had to get up for the bathroom one time that night. I also had a two am fall on the stairs (not: not down the stairs, but on the stairs) as I tried to get my ice bath container refilled. It didn’t hurt, but it did teach me that I need to use the railings to go down stairs, and it did wake up my parents. My mom refilled my ice container, and everyone went back to sleep, eventually.

Sunday I was in a lot less pain than Saturday; I was able to walk around (with crutches) a lot more, and generally be more jovial. The rolling birthday party continued with a few more friends coming by; Spiderman 3 was the movie of the night.  My surgeon Dr. Wahl also called and we discussed a few things including weight-bearing (ok as long as comfortable, because no meniscus work was done), metal in the screws and pins (a titanium molly bolt and a titanium molybdenum pin, as I recall), and when the surgical dressing can come off (no earlier than Tuesday).

Today, I am just now getting ready to take my first of the twice daily oxycodone extended release. I haven’t used any of the “booster pills” since Saturday, and I hope to continue that. It is raining and dreary, so I guess I won’t be going out for a run today…

Hopefully this is the only post with this title for a good long time… at any rate, today my Mom is picking me up at 10:30, and I report to the UWMC Surgery Pavillion at 11:15. About 4 or 5 hours later I should be leaving with some sort of drug high, my new knee brace and icing cuff, and some newly installed ACL-like tissue in my knee.

I’d like to thank all of my recent well-wishers; I really do appreciate the support you’ve all offered and given.

Finally, the Biochem test this morning was an unmitigated disaster. I did enjoy the bike ride there and back, though — it will be my last for a long time.

Some time this morning, I noticed that the permalink for my last post was not simply “wasted”, but rather it was wasted-3, implying that I had used the title twice before.  After a short investigation, I found that this was indeed the case — wasted was written in 2005 and wasted-2 was written in 2004 (it was imported from greymatter, so it received the “-2” moniker). I guess I didn’t have a wasted period in 2006; perhaps this will have to do.

At any rate, I figure having only one post with that title per year isn’t doing too bad. So while I get over the sniffles I acquired while staying up too late watching the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, listen to my music, and plug away at my Bioengineering project (due Tuesday), and contemplate some of life’s mysteries, I think I’m going to be just fine.

In other news, I changed the slugs for the three “wasted” posts to -2004, -2005, and -2007. Once a year.

First the good news — some very good friends of mine threw me a cool early birthday party at Golden Gardens park. Alice and Sabrina — Thanks!

Now, the less happy things. My first technical interview ever went poorly. That is was with Google, a company I may actually want to work for, adds to the pain a little. I don’t expect much after my performance, but I’ve been surprised by events before, so I won’t give up hope either.

Life has also been a bit stressful recently, and I responded badly this weekend, getting nothing done. At a critical juncture in the quarter, a whole weekend wasted!

Between me and surgery on Friday, I have quite the line-up: I’m interviewing with Microsoft on Thursday, four or five Biochem lectures to watch before a test Friday in the early morning, a CSE project milestone, a BioE project and two labs, significant work on my BioE capstone project, and probably a few other things to finish before I get older.

Just got to keep my eye on the prize.

8:45 wake
9:30-10:20 CSE 467 Lecture
10:30-3:00 Capstone lab
3:00-3:30 lunch
3:30-5:00 Bioen 499 Lecture on Cochlear Implants (very good!)
5:00-11:00 CSE 467 lab (not done!)
midnight-2:45 work
2:45-3:00 saw 4 people being chased by or already pulled over by cops

Today at 10:00, I left for the UW Sports Medicine Clinic (not to be confused with Hall Health Sports Medicine, where I initially went after my injury). There, I filled out some paperwork and then met Dr. Chris Wahl, whom Dr. Jonathan Drezner at Hall Health Sports Medicine referred me to. After another short exam and looking at MRIs, Dr. Wahl shared his conclusion that I have a ruptured (nearly to completely torn) ACL and a sprained LCL. The LCL he thinks has a good chance of healing on its own because it is outside of the middle of the knee. The ACL, on the other hand, has no chance of healing on its own, and will need ligament reconstructive surgery to restore stability to my knee.

My parents were kind enough to attend with me, and we each asked a number of questions about the surgery, the recovery period, timing, and so forth. The end result is that I am headed in for surgery on the 9th of November. I think of it as a sort of early birthday present from Dr. Wahl. The surgery will involve harvesting two of the five hamstring tendons from my right leg and using these to replace the ruptured ACL. Also at the time of the surgery, the state of my LCL will be reassessed, and if it is determined to not be healing tightly enough, I will receive an allograft (cadaver tissue) reinforcement to the outside of the right knee.

The hamstring autograft procedure ends up being stronger than the original ACL, and out of hundreds of reconstruction procedures that Dr. Wahl has performed, no one has ever had any problems with their hamstrings afterwards. If the LCL reinforcement is necessary, I will end up with a much bigger scar on the outside of my right knee. This is because of a nerve that runs near where the surgery must take place; they must move this nerve during the surgery to avoid cutting it, which would prevent me from feeling or controlling the muscles at the top of my foot. The ACL procedure, on the other hand, involves only three small holes around the right knee.

My confidence in Dr. Wahl is high; it was further supported by the following exchange between myself and a UW EE professor:

Me: I wanted to write you to thank you for showing us the cleanroom and lab areas during Albert’s Neural Engineering class. I’m also the student who hurt his knee, and you had mentioned a knee specialist that I might want to talk to. If you can easily find his name, that would be great, but even if not, don’t worry; I think I’m in good hands already.

EE Prof: The name of the doctor is Christopher Wahl, he is probably still and assistant professor in UW Medicine.

Me: Amazing! Dr. Wahl is the surgeon who I met with today and am going to have reconstruct my ACL in about three weeks. When I said I thought I was in good hands, I guess I was right!

EE Prof: That’s great! My friend had a very good experience with him, and he was recommended to her from others who said very good things of him.

Fortuitous!